Subscribe To

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Komyozo-zanmai (Samadhi of The Treasury of Radiant Light) by Koun Ejo Zenji

Selections (from the book "Shikantaza"):
I have some earnest advice for those who sincerely aspire to practice. Do not be pulled by a particular state of mind or by an object. Do not rely upon the intellect or wisdom. Do not carry in your hands what you have learned in your seat in the sangha hall. Cast your body and mind into the great komyozo (treasury of radiant light) and never look back.
Neither seek to be enlightened or drive away delusion. Neither hate the arising of thoughts nor love thoughts and identify with them. Just sit stably and calmly. If you do not continue to think, thoughts will not arise by themselves. Just sit as if you were the boundless sky or a ball of fire. Trust everything to the inhalation and the exhalation. Even if 84,000 idle thoughts arise, each and every one may become the light of prajna (higher wisdom) if you do not pay them any attention and simply let them go.
To inhale or to exhale, to listen or to touch, being without thoughts and discrimination is nothing other than the tranquil illumination of the light in which body and mind are one. Therefore, when someone calls, you answer. This is the light in which ordinary people and sages, the deluded and the enlightened, are one.